Newsletter Signup

Living With the Monsterpocalypse

Chapter 3 – SENTINEL'S STAND

John Pressman, Big World News Network

Living With the Monsterpocalypse is an ongoing segment that shines a light on events leading up to and following the arrival of the Planet Eaters and subsequent invaders of Earth. Each installment sheds new light on the early days of this unfolding war against the monsters, with exclusive information obtained from the men and women who were there in the first days of the Monsterpocalypse.

The weeks following the destruction of Laser Knight presented humanity with some of its greatest challenges. In what seemed like a response to the injury of Gorghadra, additional Planet Eaters woke from hibernation and emerged from comet fragments across the globe.

G.U.A.R.D. scrambled defenders to the sites of these new emergences, but the vehicles and soldiers were not able to repel the large Planet Eaters, instead focusing their efforts on evacuating civilian populations and trying to divert the Planet Eaters from critical infrastructure.

During this period, Sky Sentinel was deployed to each new theater of battle, often leaving one battlefield to travel to another. Pilot Jance Manson describe the ordeal as “the hardest tour of duty I’ve had before or since” and “going round-for-round in the boxing ring with a string of heavyweights one after the next.”

His description is apt, because Sky Sentinel often operated for 72 hours or more at a time without relief. What little repairs could be affected needed to take place with field facilities, as G.U.A.R.D. could not afford to keep the machine out of the air. The natural resilience of the Planet Eaters was another detriment in battle efforts. Manson shared one experience: “Flying back from the disaster that was Helsinki, I got the call Gorghadra was in the south end of Boston. This was a surprise, because that morning I had busted Gorg’s jaw half off his face. When I touched down in Columbus Park, I saw him chewing up the back half of a MBTA bus like nothing had even happened.”

It was clear that Sky Sentinel and Manson could not keep up this ongoing campaign alone. Support choppers and strike fighters were deployed in advance of each conflict to reduce the number of smaller threats in each theater, but even their weaponry was insufficient to fully turn the tide. Meanwhile, the Defender-class chassis in development suffered delays and setbacks, as the Planet Eaters had destroyed several critical supply chains bringing material to the North American G.U.A.R.D. headquarters. Sky Sentinel needed to trade attention from an unending series of Planet Eater attacks and protecting the production of its only hope for backup.

It was at this time that G.U.A.R.D. listening posts began to receive strange and sometimes conflicting reports. Senior Communications Officer Change of the Hawaii post called them “the most frustrating experience I’ve had in G.U.A.R.D.,” saying it “initially seemed like a prank.”

Reports from East Asia described superhuman giants appearing from thin air to battle Planet Eaters at places like Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant in Shenzen, China, and the Japanese Self Defense Force Kisarazu Airfield.

Of particular note was the Tokyo Fragment, the portion of the comet that fell northwest of the city. Reports of these mysterious giants came shortly before one of the most significant events in the early days of the Monsterpocalypse: the death of a Planet Eater. Observers claimed hundreds of giant men descended into the impact crater, emerging hours later carrying the head of one of the Planet Eaters before vanishing once more.

While sounding like the stuff of fantasy, it is true that of all the major comet fragments, one of the Planet Eaters never emerged from hibernation. If it were true that these giants managed to kill the slumbering beast, it marked the next major victory for humanity in our ongoing war.

Perhaps bolstered by this strange report, G.U.A.R.D. technicians successfully completed initial construction of mankind’s next champion. Defender-class Defender-X, the pinnacle of military technology, was completed and deployed. And not a moment too soon—within hours of Defender-X’s initial operation, G.U.A.R.D. received a report of multiple Planet Eater groups approaching Paris.